After months and months of teething with no teeth in evidence, two of her pre-molars (bicuspids) on the top have popped out. During her 15-month exam, we saw white molars lurking just under the gum, and I really believe that really, soon, those incisors on the bottom are going to poke through any day now.
She's starting to put two words together, either as little sentences or as compound words. Her first one was "Mama's hat," her second "Bye-bye, Daddy." She has since added "fire truck," "watermelon," and "starfish." She articulates these either in sign or a combination of sign and spoken words (but she usually signs even when she speaks the word, such as star — "sssstaaaa" — or truck — "drruk").
She is learning her colors, red being her favorite, but she will also say or sign blue, yellow, green, orange, purple, white, black, and gray. She's having difficulty distinguishing pink from red! She also seems to be learning her shapes, which include circles, squares, triangles, rectangles, cylinders, and rings (she has blocks in these shapes). We're also working on numbers. She definitely understands "one" and may understand the idea of "two." But in terms of counting on her fingers, she can only manage 1 and 5. When she tries to hold up two fingers, she holds them all up and crosses her middle fingers.
But our favorite developments have to do with her flowering personality. She continues to show deep affection for her stuffed animals. One day, we brought Luna over to Grandma's house, which allowed Sylvia to bring together her favorite bear with the mooing-laughing-vibrating cow that she initially feared, but now enjoys. She put them next to each other and introduced them thusly: "Na-na, Ow. Na-na, Ow."
Her hiding game has become more sophisticated as she now pretends more elaborately that she has no idea where she has hidden something. She shrugs, ignores the object longer, and makes an "I dunno" kind of noise. She has started singing a little ditty that usually has the same melody, but the words vary from "Ma-ma, Da-da, Ma-ma, Da-da" to "wa-wa" to "na-na." (We extrapolate from this that her favorite things are her parents, water, and bananas.) And, much to my delight, her dancing is getting more rhythmic. She will bounce in deep knee bends to the beat, sway from side to side, sometimes spin. Kevin says that during one dance, she stretched out her arm, finger pointing, and swept her arm from side to side — a move that she gets from him.
But enough of the updates. We were happy to host Granddad, a.k.a. Scott, over Labor Day weekend! Sylvia thoroughly enjoyed having her Granddad in town, and her pronunciation of "Granddad" noticeably improved over the course of his visit.
But to back up for a moment, here's Sylvia discovering new signs in Mama's American Sign Language dictionary:
"Hm, surely it must be easier to sign 'acquaintance' than to say it."
Mama signs "sign."
Granddad arrived on the Friday before Labor Day. We had a pleasantly full itinerary for his visit that included a few fun activities but not too much running around.
Kevin took a lot of pleasure in dressing Sylvia in this party dress for our special visit to the Skirball's Noah's Ark exhibit on Saturday. It's still a bit big on her, but we've been waiting so long to put her in it! And as frequently occurs between mamas and babies, I inadvertently dressed to match with her:
Sylvia first visited Noah's Ark in April, but in the six months since her last visit, she has developed a lot of skills to better appreciate the exhibit. Here she is again with the zebras, which have spinning parts.
Her obsession with water set her up to love the diorama where you can work the pump and make it rain and flood.
She still likes the camels! I love the look she is exchanging with Granddad here.
Granddad kicks back with the walruses:
Sylvia has a much greater knowledge of animals now, which she put to good use. Here she is handling a giraffe. There was also a wonderful moment where Kevin picked up a puppet (we were never quite clear what kind of animal it was — woodchuck? muskrat? groundhog?) and had it interact with her. She clearly felt like they had made a connection and was so sad when we had to say goodbye to it!
Yay! A photo of all three of us!
That evening, we went over to Aunty Crystal and Uncle Tim's place for dinner. Sylvia lounged on chairs that actually used to belong to Granddad:
She climbs on everything!
Tim and Scott manage to have an adult conversation:
We ate in the lush courtyard behind their apartment. Sylvia was fully entertained by the fountain, the small rocks on the ground, and the long, sloped ramp on the side of the building.
Such a delicious dinner! Such good company! We had a great time.
Kevin captured this wonderful interaction between Granddad and Sylvia over one of her favorite books:
On Sunday, we got together with Grandma Fran and Grandpa Mark for brunch at the Hotel Bel Air. Mom thought it might be nice to go since they are closing for two years (!) for renovations. Actually, one person in this photo did not attend the brunch, but instead stayed behind with a babysitter. Mama and Daddy found brunch particularly restful! It was also a huge meal; when we finally ate dinner after 9 p.m., we were still only slightly hungry.
For some reason, Sylvia has always been intrigued by exploring textures and objects with her feet (wrappers, lids, the difference between tile and carpet). Her latest is this piece of plastic wrap from a set of socks:
I close with this touching photo of Sylvia with another bear close to her heart named Syrup, whom she addresses tenderly as "Up."
Sylvia was sad to see Granddad leave this morning! After he left, she asked about him mournfully a few times.
Our next big adventure will be a trip to northern California next week. Sylvia will get to see grandparents, aunties and an uncle, cousins, and all of her great-grandparents! We're happy that she's so spoiled with an abundance of family.
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